Current Events > Study finds that right-wing authoritarians aren't very funny people

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https://www.psychnewsdaily.com/study-finds-that-right-wing-authoritarians-arent-very-funny-people/

A new study has found that right-wing authoritarians that is, people who are hostile to non-conformity are considerably less funny than people who do not share that disposition.

The study appeared on October 6 in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. It looks at the effects of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) on humor production. The authors define RWA as a combination of factors such as submission to authority, aggression towards deviant and marginal groups, and adherence to traditional social norms.

Studies dating back to the 1950s and 1960s already found that people who score high in authoritarianism enjoy jokes that disparage low-status or marginalized groups. Likewise, they are less likely to enjoy jokes that express hostility to authority figures.

Yet researchers know very little about the links between RWA and humor production, i.e. coming up with funny ideas of ones own. One 1957 study found that people who score low in authoritarianism wrote funnier cartoon captions, whereas a 1980 study found hardly any correlation.

But the assessment of RWA and humor production have improved in the intervening decades, prompting the researchers to revisit this question.

Measuring humor production

For this study, the researchers recruited 186 adults from a university in North Carolina. The participants average age was 19, though they ranged in age from 18 to 53. They were 77% female, and ethnically diverse.

The researchers measured the participants humor production skills on several creative tasks. Throughout these tasks, the instructions encouraged them to be funny, to express themselves freely, and to feel comfortable being weird, silly, dirty, ironic, bizarre, or whatever, as long as their responses were funny.

In the first task, the participants generated funny captions for three cartoons. One depicted an astronaut talking into a mobile phone. Another showed a king lying on a psychologists couch. The third showed two businessmen, one with a gun, standing over a body on the floor.

The second task presented the participants with unusual noun combinations, such as cereal bus or yoga bank, and asked them to come up with funny definitions for them.

The final task asked the participants to complete a quirky scenario with a punchline. One scenario, for example, involved telling people about a horrible meal. The other two scenarios involved describing a boring college class, and giving feedback on a friends bad singing.

Eight independent raters scored the responses on a 3-point scale (not funny, somewhat funny, or funny). The raters did not know anything about the participants, including their responses on other items.

Authoritarians, openness, and conscientiousness

The researchers measured the participants degree of right-wing authoritarianism using a 15-item scale on which they indicated how strongly they agree or disagree with various statements. Examples include Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us, or Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else.

The researchers also measured the participants personality traits (using the HEXACO-100 personality test). They focused on the traits of openness to experience and conscientiousness, as past research has found that these traits relate to both humor production and right-wing authoritarianism. Some research, for example, has linked openness to creative thinking and humor. Other studies have found that conscientious people perform worse on creativity and humor tasks.
Results: right-wing authoritarians arent very funny

Right-wing authoritarianism had a significant negative relationship with humor; people who scored high in RWA generated responses that the raters considered to be much less funny.

RWA also correlated negatively with openness to experience, and positively with conscientiousness. As the researchers expected, openness correlated positively with humor production, and conscientiousness correlated negatively with it.

These findings, the authors write, strongly suggest that people high in RWA are less funny, defined as the ability to create humorous ideas, even when global personality traits with established ties to RWA, humor, and creativity are controlled for.

The researchers suggest that future studies should look more closely at the components of right-wing authoritarianism that impair humor creation. One possible mechanism is that RWA correlates with cognitive rigidity and seriousness, versus flexibility and playfulness.

In sum, the authors write, the findings suggest that people high in RWA just arent very funny.

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youre crazy man. it's the far left memes that are unfunny, obv

impossible

https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-awful-but-revealing-examples-conservative-comedy/

I maintain that this is one of the greatest things Seanbaby has ever done

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Tmaster148 posted...

Studies dating back to the 1950s and 1960s already found that people who score high in authoritarianism enjoy jokes that disparage low-status or marginalized groups. Likewise, they are less likely to enjoy jokes that express hostility to authority figures.

Ahhhh, Racist Joke Guy... you've been exposed.
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Yeah, one of the biggest indicators of conservative humor is that it "punches downwards" so to speak

Liberals tend to make fun of people in positions of authority, as well as self-depreciation.

Now that I think of it, I don't know of a single conservative who engages in self-depreciating humor. It's okay to make fun of those other people, but don't you DARE make fun of me!

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Well it took years of testing and millions of dollars but we've finally determined that this steven crowder video isn't funny, actually.

JinGiReiChiShin posted...

Yeah, one of the biggest indicators of conservative humor is that it "punches downwards" so to speak

Liberals tend to make fun of people in positions of authority, as well as self-depreciation.

Now that I think of it, I don't know of a single conservative who engages in self-depreciating humor. It's okay to make fun of those other people, but don't you DARE make fun of me!

"The status quo is everything. It's the ladder I (can in theory) climb."
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Hoo boy I was only able to make it through 2 paragraphs of that

But yeah not hard to believe

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Notti posted...

"The status quo is everything. It's the ladder I (can in theory) climb."

Yeah, pretty much.

The vast majority of conservatives are aspirational conservatives. They think if they sing from the same hymn sheet as the establishment theyll magically become affluent.

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So basically the right can't meme?
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teepan95 posted...

So basically the right can't meme?

Memes are the lowest form of wit.

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The_Creep_2020 posted...

teepan95 posted...

So basically the right can't meme?

Memes are the lowest form of wit.

No, sarcasm is
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Humor these days is highly moderated anyway, leading to the declines in overall sense of humor.

teepan95 posted...

No, sarcasm is

That is so incredibly original, did you think it up yourself?

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but the left cant meme!!!!

THEY CANT!!!!!!


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Gotta love those studies that just confirm what anyone with functioning senses had already figured out through observation.

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So if the right isn't funny and the left isn't funny is it truly only us enlightened centrists that can make jokes? Makes sense, I guess.

specialkid8 posted...

So if the right isn't funny and the left isn't funny is it truly only us enlightened centrists that can make jokes? Makes sense, I guess.

Truly need both cheeks to properly take a shit

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lmfao

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JinGiReiChiShin posted...

https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-awful-but-revealing-examples-conservative-comedy/

I maintain that this is one of the greatest things Seanbaby has ever done

I think my life and world view is significantly worse off knowing that sort of comedy exists in the world.

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Kinda seems like the glaring issue here is the people rating how humorous the participants are.

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Lefties and libs are the ones that can't meme!!!

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Is it the authoritarian part or the right wing part?

The hard leaners on either side of the political spectrum arent funny.

They let their politics dictate what they will/wont say or what they will/wont laugh at.

Which makes you an unfunny c***.

Pokemon GO to the polls

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